1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dust collector of a vacuum cleaner, and more particularly, to a dust collector of a vacuum cleaner, in which dust can be collected more efficiently and a backward flow of collected dust can be prevented.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a vacuum cleaner sucks air containing dust using a negative pressure generated by a suction motor installed in a main body, and then dust is separated from the air in the main body.
Vacuum cleaners can be divided into a canister type vacuum cleaner and an upright type vacuum cleaner. A canister type vacuum cleaner includes a separate nozzle used for sucking air containing dust from a surface to be cleaned, a main body, and a connection tube connecting the separate nozzle to the main body. On the hand, an upright type vacuum cleaner includes a nozzle formed integral with a main body.
Meanwhile, a vacuum cleaner includes a dust collector for collecting dust from sucked air. The dust collector includes a suction tube through which air containing dust is sucked, a dust collector vessel forming a dust storage, a dust separating unit for separating dust from the air, a discharge hole for discharging air from the dust separating unit, and a filter for filtering out dust.
In detail, the dust collector vessel is divided by a barrier wall into a space for the dust separating unit and a space for the dust storage. A dust discharge hole is formed in the barrier wall to discharge dust from the dust separating unit to the dust storage.
An operation of the dust collector will now be described in brief. When a suction motor is powered on, outside air containing dust is sucked into the dust collector vessel. Then, dust is separated from the air in the dust separating unit. After that, the air is discharged through the discharge hole, and the separated dust is sent to the dust storage formed in a lower portion of the dust collector vessel through the dust discharge hole.
However, since the dust is sent to the dust storage through the dust discharge hole formed in the barrier wall by gravity, relatively light dust particles remain in the dust separating unit although heavy dust particles are easily moved down to the dust storage by gravity.
In other words, when dust is collected in the dust storage, the dust is moved in a direction different from the direction along which the dust is moved while it is separated from air. Therefore, the dust separated from the air cannot be easily moved down to the dust storage.
Furthermore, since light dust particles remain in the dust separating unit, filter installed in the dust separating unit is contaminated by the light dust. In this case, air cannot easily pass through the filter, and thus dust is not efficiently removed from the air.
In addition, since dust separated from air is sent from the dust separating unit to the dust storage through the dust discharge hole formed in the barrier wall by gravity, dust stored in the dust storage can be blown off and moved back to the dust separating unit by swirling air during a dust separating process.
Moreover, the dust moved back to the separating unit decreases the efficiency of the dust separating unit.